Be glad you saw tonight's game.
It's going to go down in history books.
Bob Errey will reference it 100 times each game from now until death, and even then we will hear whispers of it on the wind.
If you missed this game, we're sorry.
The 1/29/13 Pens/Isles game will forever be remembered as one of the most amazing nights in not only the NHL, not only professional sports, but in the history of the human experience.

Our awards mean nothing in light of what has happened but we can't give up our duty in the face of such greatness. We must continue on.

MOST MEANINGFUL OMENS
During pregame, the camera follows Dan Potash into the locker room for some feature we assume will be about Joe Vitale spinning wool or the weird shoes that Sutter has to wear every Tuesday, as these things typically go.
We catch a glimpse of Sidney Crosby running a finger along his blades with a glint in his eye that we aren't legally allowed to call evil, so we'll go with "menacing." Clearly something has happened to him.
Tanger is taking imaginary slapshots, and as he pulls his arms back, you see what looks strangely like stigmata on his palms.
Malkin is muttering to himself in tongues.
The room smells like the musk of…could it be?
You look around your room, wondering who spilled a gallon of scotch into a kiddie pool of old spice. Surely the smell isn't emanating from the screen…?

Right away we all know that something strange is going on here.

MOST PREGNANCIES INDUCED
It is only accurate to give this award to the first six minutes of this game, because after that all females in the world became impregnated. Though there were a few double pregnancies caused later on, the medical unlikelihood of it made for the fact that not as many happened in those moments. We want to be mathematically accurate here.

Only seconds after the puck dropped the Penguins were on the attack.
James Neal was all over the place, weaving in and out of the Isles players like he was making a friendship bracelet. Finally he reached Nabby, gave him a wink (because not even lesbians are immune to that charm) and pushed the puck delicately over the line as Nabs fluttered his eyelashes and waved an oriental fan.

That was minute one alone.
You can see why the world supply of pre-natal vitamins is now entirely inadequate.
Of course, minutes 2-6 included Tyler Kennedy's double hat trick, so, you know.

MOST POTENTIAL REALIZED
The Pens get on their first powerplay when Grabner's leg literally explodes onto the ice and he gets called for unsportsmanlike mussiness. The problem only gets worse when the ice crew comes to clean it up and are suddenly incapacitated en masse due to food poisoning that isn't fatal, but will prevent them from ever working at the arena again.
The league announces via Jumbotron that future lawsuits aren't worth the risk.
Ice crew canceled forever.
Once the mess is cleaned up, the passing in tight, the puck control amazing, and when Letang gets his stick on that puck, he lasers it into the net like he saw it in a dream. We haven't seen something like that since…since…
IT FINALLY HAPPENED
HE FINALLY LEARNED.

THE MOMENT YOU REAL-
oh fuck it.

You guys, I can't do it.
I just can't.
I mean, we haven't done a good fake-recap in a few seasons and I was thinking tonight was the night…but I just don't have it in me. I have a lot of sadness.

You see, Zoe and I are really good at blaming shitty play on Feelings and Chemistry and Bad Situations. Because you know what? Those things cause problems a lot in hockey.
Not tonight, though. We have all of the pieces of a great team.
Tonight was watching a child cut off parts of each piece so he could cram them down the way he wanted.

There were going to be some really skilled Billy G references.
A few mentions of angels coming down from the rafters.
Curry may have made a reappearance, I don't know.
Let's hope there's never an occasion to fake-recap again, but if there is, I promise we'll bring it, hard.

For now, let's just admit that something isn't right here.
We're not gaining momentum. Our speed is missing.
We're thinking too hard.
We can't see the forest for the trees, etc, etc.

But you know what? It's the beginning of the season. We had a long break. Yeah, we need to get it together, but we will.
We can handle this. You see, we aren't the only ones watching. The boys are watching. The coaches are watching. We can get this all sorted out with plenty of time to spare. And because we're a bitching team, we will.

But someone, really, stop having sex with Malkin.
The man is clearly getting laid too often.
Zoe and I tried to agree that we would turn him down and yell about turnovers if he approached us, but we just ended up agreeing that there's no situation in which we could do that. Which is a problem – even we can't help in this situation.

So ladies, don't have sex with Geno.
Otherwise, keep watching.
Stick with it.
We're going to get it right, and when we do, it's going to be glorious.